The Campaign

A V branded video game mod for Fallout 4 that made the entire game a bit better.
We wanted to enter the world of gaming, but we didn't want to follow convention and sponsor the crowded eSports market.
Instead, we targeted the community of Fallout 4 gamers, one of the biggest games in history. We covertly went on Reddit and asked them how they would improve the game "a bit".
We then used those requests to create Bit Better Fallout: A mod that incorporated three hours of new story content, new Power Armor suits, new weapons and dozens more features.
We also added V Energy into the game. When players drank the drink, all of their stats were improved a bit. These were placed around the world in vending machines labeled "Property of Shameless Product Placement Inc" continually spawning indefinitely even after the three hours of content was completed.

Creative Execution

The mod all started by adding V Energy Drink into the game as a consumable object. The scale of the mod went way beyond this with over three hours of new content and dozens of features.
We created the mod using Fallout 4's Creation Kit over two months. We then soft-launched to the PC community on Nexus Mods. There, we worked with the community's feedback to squash bugs and tweak it.
We launched on Xbox,and streamed with Twitch Influencers to over 600,000 engaged viewers. We got coverage in all the major gaming blogs and mags. We were the number 1 trending mod over the campaign and it was even translated into frence.
As a brand whose sole purpose is to improve our drinkers a bit, we brought that proposition to life by improving not only their in game character, but their entire in-game world.

Literally thousands of gamers watched the 4 hour stream of V-branded content effectively reconnecting us with our audience. Yes we reached over 2,000,000 people, but they were also the right people, skewed heavily to 18-24s and served by influential personalities in a medium where they paid attention.
Advertisers will tell you that Facebook killed organic advertising, but it’s still alive and well, if you find the right communities outside of Facebook to amplify your brand story. For us, it was gaming sites like Nexus Mods, Sub- Reddits, Creation Club and in the game itself.
Other Energy Drinks have played in gaming, but always as corporate entities buying naming rights. Our branded content wasn’t a long-form video that nobody watches, it can be a way to involve a brand with a community.
In one month there were over 30,000 downloads and 100,000+ hours of gameplay plus. It was translated into French.

When companies enter the video game world, they sponsor eSports or include a billboard for their product in “the world” of the game. We went WAY further than this. We created a V branded mod that made the whole video game of Fallout 4 a bit better.
We didn't buy space in the game. We turned the entire game into our media channel with over 3 hours of new gameplay. When they found our vending machine in-game they unlocked over 7 new characters, new levels, armour, weapons, 100s of new lines of dialogue and even an in-game radio station.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

V Energy Drink’s brand platform for the last 5 years has been ‘The massive hit, that improves you… a bit’ - drinking our drink won’t make you superhuman but it will make you a bit better at stuff.
We knew we wanted to make Fallout 4 a bit better but we also wanted to do it in a way that gave back to the gaming community. We wanted to reward them for engaging and interacting with our brand. To do this, we started by asking them what they wanted to be improved.
We started the Bit Better Fallout project in November 2017 with a post on Reddit asking "if you could improve Fallout 4 just a bit, what would you do?". We received hundreds of responses and this informed the development of the mod as well as the features, levels, weapons and characters (see execution for more detail).

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